{"id":5816,"date":"2011-08-12T11:42:13","date_gmt":"2011-08-12T17:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=5816"},"modified":"2011-08-12T11:42:55","modified_gmt":"2011-08-12T17:42:55","slug":"nprs-top-100-science-fiction-fantasy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/nprs-top-100-science-fiction-fantasy\/","title":{"rendered":"NPR’s Top 100 Science Fiction & Fantasy"},"content":{"rendered":"

In case you didn’t know, NPR just put together a list of the Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy novels<\/a> of all time. \u00a0The list had a panel of judges who vetted nominations, but the voting was public and turnout–over 60,000–was pretty high.<\/p>\n

I usually don’t like top 100 lists, but this one did a pretty good job representing the genre. \u00a0I recognized about 2\/3rds of the titles, and most of my own personal favorites were included.<\/p>\n

There were a few notable exceptions, however. \u00a0David Gemmell wasn’t represented at all–a travesty of the highest proportions. \u00a0Neither was C.J. Cherryh, which I find very surprising. \u00a0Robert Charles Wilson has certainly written some books worthy of the list, and Dave Wolverton’s On My Way to Paradise–<\/em>which, I would argue, is one of the best science fiction novels ever written–was notably absent.<\/p>\n

Also, a few of the titles were further down on the list than I would have put them. \u00a0The Dispossessed<\/em>\u00a0by Ursula K. Le Guin came in at #78, while I would have put it at least in the top 20. \u00a0A Canticle for Leibowitz<\/em>\u00a0did better at #35, but was it really an inferior book to The Handmaid’s Tale?<\/em>\u00a0 Come on, people.<\/p>\n

One thing I don’t think this list represents well (or top 100 lists in general) is the way in which sf&f fandom has split into dozens of communities and tribes, almost like Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos Islands. \u00a0Before science fiction went mainstream, it was possible to follow all the various titles and developments. \u00a0Now, however, there’s so much out there that it’s impossible to be fully cognizant of everything.<\/p>\n

I think fandom has split into some very distinct communities clustered around the popular authors and sub-genres, and there’s not a whole lot of overlap between them. \u00a0None of them are large enough to spawn an entirely new genre (with the possible exception of paranormal romance), but lumping them all into science fiction & fantasy can be a bit problematic.<\/p>\n

That said, I think this is a pretty good list. \u00a0What do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In case you didn’t know, NPR just put together a list of the Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy novels of all time. \u00a0The list had a panel of judges who vetted nominations, but the voting was public and turnout–over 60,000–was pretty high. I usually don’t like top 100 lists, but this one did a… Continue reading NPR’s Top 100 Science Fiction & Fantasy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[183,217,113,608,212,99,465,599,1510],"class_list":["post-5816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-c-j-cherryh","tag-dave-farland","tag-david-gemmell","tag-npr","tag-robert-charles-wilson","tag-science-fiction","tag-sff-fandom","tag-thoughts-reflections","tag-ursula-k-le-guin","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-1vO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5816"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5825,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5816\/revisions\/5825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}